THE letter from Dr Thomas and Professor Allen in tonight's Evening News (You Say, December 4) confirms what anyone involved in any type of hunting has known for years.

Hunting with hounds is just as welfare-friendly to the quarry species (fox, mink and so on) as all the other alternative legal methods of controlling their numbers.

The anti-brigade may shout that the fox controls its own numbers - if only this was true. Where the fox population get too big, mange, a disease caused by parasites, condemns the fox to a slow and painful death.

Anyone who has seen a fox suffering in the final stages of mange knows their numbers need keeping at a sensible level for their own good.

ALAN COOK, Bishops Frome, near Worcester.